Category: business

As most of you man know, I live in New York State (Hudson Valley region). This is very close to the COVID-19 outbreak in Westchester County. There has been one confirmed case in my town. As such, we are experiencing the outbreak ahead of the curve from the rest of the country. School has been cancelled for at least two weeks and perhaps indefinitely. All public gathering places are closed; restaurants, bars, movie theaters, malls, churches, etc. As a radio engineer, the COVID-19 virus has a several implications:

Things are still going to break and will need attention. The good news is that most transmitter sites are unmanned. The only social interaction my be during the travel phase (getting fuel, food, etc).

Many studios and offices are being abandoned as well. Over the last few days, we have set up DJ’s to operate from their houses. Most sales and office staff have been told to work from home.

Broadcasters have been designated critical communications infrastructure, The Department of Homeland Security has issued letters that allow travel and procurement of fuel during the national emergency for critical personnel.

I managed, prior to the store shelves being emptied this weekend, procure some PPE. I don’t know how effective it will be, but anything is better than nothing.

Since Hurricane Sandy, I have had in place many emergency supplies and equipment needed to restore service in the event of a long term interruption of basic services.

There are many long term economic implications. For commercial radio stations, the loss of income is going to be extreme. As the virus has spread, businesses have cancelled pretty much all advertising. During past disasters, radio was often the only means of getting information to the general population. I am not sure if this is still the case. How relevant is radio these days?

I found this video on YouTube about WEQX, Manchester, Vermont. WEQX is a class B FM station with its tower located on Mount Equinox. This gives the station a huge signal with a HAAT of 759 meters and 1,250 watts of power. It comes in well south of Albany and while I am in the Albany area, I enjoy listening to it.

This piece is by CGTN, which one wonders how they ended up in Manchester, VT of all places.

The information below the video is also an interesting read. In part it goes into corporate ownership of radio in the US, stating:

In 1983, 90 percent of U.S. media was controlled by 50 corporations. Today, just six corporations control that 90 percent… Among the 10% (of radio stations) currently not controlled by those six corporations is an alternative rock station in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

That is misleading. The “six corporations” they are referring to dates back an article published several years ago. They are; Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, News Corp, CBS and NBC/Universal. As of this writing, none of those companies listed owns any radio stations. Further, the media scene in general has become much more fragmented with the advent and greater acceptance of things like Pod Casting, YouTube and other social media.

There are three big radio station owners, which together own 1,613 radio stations. That represents approximately 14% of the licensed commercial AM and FM stations in the US. There are several medium sized owners; Entercom (237), Salem (118), Saga (108), Midwest (75), Forever (69), Beasley (63) and so on. While iHeart (851), Cumulus (442), and Townsquare (320) influence the way other station owners operate, by and large, the majority of radio stations in this country are still owned by small business owners. Stations that are keeping it local continue to be noticed and hopefully rewarded with a successful business.

WEQX is certainly a unique station and it always has been. In the late 90’s and early 00’s, I did some work for them at various times. It was always fun and I enjoyed it.

What has been the net effect of these changes? Has any of this revitalized AM radio? The net effect has been approximately more of the same. There have been many stations that have applied for and received licenses for FM translators. Those stations, in most cases that I am aware of, receive some benefit of extra revenue because of this. Stations with carrier power levels of 10-50 KW have taken advantage of MDCL technology to save some money on their electric bill. Nothing wrong with that.

For stations that use a directional antenna, proofs of performance and other DA matters with the FCC have become slightly easier. Medium Frequency (MF) directional antennas are very large, require a lot of land, are expensive to build, license and maintain. I know of several stations which have downgraded from a class B station with a directional antenna to a class D station with a single tower and greatly reduced night time power. Those downgraded stations certainly benefit from an FM translator.

I have heard from more than one AM station owner who says after four years, they are going to “turn in their AM license and just keep the FM.” I am sure that they are not informed regarding translator rules. Perhaps, however, the FCC will allow this in the future; a sort of back door commercial low power FM station classification.

The AM band zenith occurred in November of 1991, when there where 4990 licensed AM stations in the United States. As of June 30, 2018, the total stands at 4633. That is a decline of 357 stations. There are currently 90 AM stations listed as silent. That represents a decline of approximately 9 percent or less than 1/2 of one percent per year.

The last number of AM stations actually transmitting HD Radio that I found was approximately 110, which differs from the iBiquity (and FCC) number of 240. The FCC data base includes stations which are currently dark, or stations which where transmitting HD Radio at one time but have since turned it off. Either way, it is a small percentage of licensed stations. As of this time, AM HD Radio appears to be a non-starter. In other parts of the world, Medium Frequency DRM seems to be doing well. The difference seems to be that the DRM operation is all digital and the digital carriers have a much higher power level than that of the hybrid AM HD Radio being used here.

Of those 4633 standard broadcast stations, approximately 260 belong to iHeart radio, Cumulus owns approximately 120 and Townsquare owns approximately 80. That accounts for 460 stations. The remaining 4000 or so stations currently on the air are owned by medium sized corporations or individual owners. The reason for the distinction; I have noticed that the large corporate owners tend to concentrate resources and effort on those licenses that will make the best return, e.g. FM stations. Of course, there are a few exceptions to that trend, often in major markets.

Of those 4000 or so remaining AM stations, most seem to be treading water. They are making enough money to stay on the air. There are a few AM stations that are doing remarkably well. Those are the ones with primarily local content. The vast majority of AM stations are running some type of syndicated talk. News/talk and sports radio are the two most common formats. Conservative news/talk seems to be the bread and butter. Liberal news talk has been tried, but none have succeeded.

Last May, the Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. That federal law prevented gambling on outcomes of professional and college sports games. With the overturn of that rule, individual states can now legalize sports betting. It will be interesting to see what states allow legalized sports gambling and whether that has any effect on the various sports radio formats. I can see where individuals and odds makers may want to get good inside information regarding team dynamics and so on. The sports network that can furnish such information may be in a good position to carve out a niche.

Music can and does sound good on AM when it is done correctly. There is a great misconception that AM fidelity is poor. That is not necessarily so. There are a good many AM receivers these days which have much better bandwidth than the previous generation receivers. I am noticing that car radios in particular sound much better. Yes, there are still problems with electrical noise and night time interference. There are still technological improvements that can be made for analog AM on the receiver side.

In summary; the revitalization efforts have benefited some AM stations in some areas. The truth is, that many AM stations have been let go for so long that there is no saving them. Other AM stations that are still viable are making a go of it. In nautical terms; there is six feet of water in the hold, the pumps are working and the ship is not sinking… for now.

Norway will switch off its national FM networks in 2017, according to the Ministry of Culture announcement. In the place of analog FM will be DAB. The aim is to have the migration to DAB completed by December of 2017. According to the article, approximately 54 percent of households and 20 percent of automobiles have DAB radios. What is left unsaid is the 46 percent of households and 80 percent of automobiles that do not have DAB capable receivers.

I am sure that in the ensuing year and a half to two years, those numbers will change somewhat. It still seems to me that there will be many people who will likely not have a DAB radio in their car before the analog switch off.

Judging by the comments on the Slash dot story, many are not happy with this decision. Perhaps the most telling comment is this:

This is just Norway going off on its own crusade urged on by commercial interests of 10+ new channels, fuck whether it makes sense to throw out millions of radios… I expect this to lead to a massive interest in building out 3G/4G coverage as ex-FMers give DAB the middle finger.

Yup, that sounds about right.

I don’t know much about radio in Norway, but it if is anything like radio here, good programming trumps technical do-dads and and fancy gimmickry.